The 230-to-189 vote set in motion a fiscal confrontation whose outcome is anything but clear....

Just one Republican crossed party lines to vote against the bill, Representative Scott Rigell of Virginia, who represents a very military dependent district and wants to end the sequestration spending cuts. The only Democrats to vote in favor were Representatives Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina.

23 comments:

I do not want "Obamacare" replaced with anything; I want it repealed in toto.And then I want Congress to go to work repealing all the other statutes they have passed before screwing up the insurance business.

However, I am not going to get that. The "wise men" say you cannot govern from one house of Congress, and that "Obamacare" and the debt ceiling raise must be allowed to pass. If so, then maybe what the Republican Pary in Congress should do, is stand aside - vote "present" - and let the Democrats pass these statutes on a partyline vote to make it clear which party owns these disasters.

And when the Senate Republicans lose their filibuster, the House will be back with a proposal to deny Obama care spending under the debt limit expansion bill. John Boehner and the Republican leadership had best watch where they step - because Tea Party Republicans are out for scalps.

The Hill reports that conservatives warned they would be watching Boehner's moves closely in the weeks ahead.

“At this point, we are in a ‘trust but verify’ moment,” Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) said, comparing the Republican Speaker to the Soviet communist leaders who tussled with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Spotting bullshit is still the theme of the day. The NYT reports why the one Republican voted against the bill-he wants the pork. But there is no indication why the two Democrats voted for it. Bullshit reporting.

Why not pass a bill that sequesters Obamacare funding for a year if certain metrics aren't achieved by their due date, such as having in place a method of verifying income data before subsidies can be provided?

By shining a light on that failing, it'd be hard to argue against that measure of fiscal responsibility, and would judo the popularity of "free stuff" among Obama's target constituencies.

Love the latest (but boringly predictable) name-calling by the usual lefty suspects--Krugman, Dionne, Ornstein, Powers, Collins, Blow. They're ripping up the thesaurus to find new synonyms for "crazy," hilariously oblivious to their own lunacy. Memo to you statists: look in the mirror.

Bingo, Hagar. Let the Democrats own Obamacare, solely and completely. The stories already coming out about website glitches, etc., are only the tip of the iceberg.

Obamacare is like a waiter bringing a raw uncooked pizza to your table, insisting that there is nothing wrong with it, and insisting that you finish every bite before you leave the table. The only reason that most people are not outraged yet is because they have no clue about how badly it is going to affect them yet. Once it goes into effect, and people really start to experience it in its full, awful entirety, the response is not going to be pretty. We overthrew kings for less.

I would like to hear the Republicans say, over and over again, that what they want to do isn't to "defund" Obamacare, but to delay implementation of a program that Obama has already delayed in part, because it's AT LEAST not ready for prime time, and probably in need of either radical revision, or scrapping and starting fresh. If they're saying that, it's sure not being reported.

But if they force the Democrats in the House and Senate to go on record as supporting a program that the American people don't like now, and won't like better when it starts to bite, they will have served a purpose.

I don't want to see a "government shutdown" (well, actually I do, but a selective one, properly planned) or a "default", and I don't expect to see either, but I think some stress and tension could be useful in getting Americans to pay attention to what's going on, before the next Congressional elections.

"Now that they've failed to kill the law every way the rules allow -- in Congress, the Supreme Court and in a presidential election -- the opponents are taking hostages and, in effect, threatening to shoot them if they don't get their way. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the hostages are the federal government and the U.S. economy."

The government is going to shut down? Oh goody! Does that mean a shut down of the IRS and every agency that collects taxes and fees? As a net taxpayer I sure hope so but somehow I have my doubts that those agencies will be shut down.

The IT people say that the administration cannot implement Obamacare because they do not have the hardware, they do not have the software, and they do not have the people whoc could make the hardware and the software work if they had it.Lem at Comment Home had a graphic up last week that someone in favor of Obamacare had prepared to show how it would all work that I think vividly illustrates why it won't work.

Then they are going to tell all the young people that they need to enroll in the program now, so that it can pay for the expensive care old coots like me require, and of course they will be eligible for, if it should happen that they live so long.This while the program also says they do not have to enroll until they actually get sick, if they do not want to and are willing to pay a nominal fine.

I hear on the news right now that the big hospitals are bailing out and discharging large numbers of employees. This I had not expected - I thought those outfits had protection for themselves.

I do expect that large numbers of primary care physicians - family doctors - will decide this regimen is too much of a hassle and decide either to find something else to do, or to go cash only.

I do not see how any of these factors are going to lead to any improvement of medical care in this country - for rich or poor.